Radiohead in 100 (+) gigs

The day after the Manchester gig, Val invites me to go with her to the band’s Christmas party. I am speechless and she explains that she’d thought long and hard about who to ask and realised that she trusts me to behave myself. “You’re not a screamer.”

I go back to Glasgow and spend the rest of the week skipping classes; daydreaming and buying music magazines to catch up on the coverage the band have finally been getting in the UK. PID even gets a mention in one article in a style magazine called Sky (about the last place I’d have expected to see a piece on Radiohead!)

Val calls me the following week to tell me that she went to the Brixton Academy gig. The show was fantastic and afterwards she caught up with Thom and talked to him at the bar for what seemed like a couple of hours. She is full of news, bits of gossip and is overwhelmed by how nice he was. They’d wondered where we’d all got to after the Manchester show, they’d gone back to their hotel and sat in the bar wondering why they were missing the party. She said that he seemed to lack confidence, found it hard to take compliments, wasn’t behaving in a starry way at all. He appreciated what she was trying to do with the Fanzine. He got it.

She knew that I’d been trying to talk to him about my letters when I was in Manchester, but that I wasn’t sure if I’d made it clear who I was. He thought it was me, but had been too embarrassed to say so in case it wasn’t. But he had got my last reply and promised to write again. Val realised how important all this was to me.

We are both quiet unfeasibly excited about the party. We have no idea what to expect. I make arrangements to go home before Christmas and get the coach over to Manchester so we can travel to Oxford together.

On December 18th, in cold winter weather, we get the coach from Manchester to Oxford. We get changed in the toilets at Gloucester Green station and then take a bus to Abingdon. We wander around in the dark and it starts to snow. We find a pub where we call a mini cab for the last leg of the journey.

By the time we get to Courtyard Studios we’re both a bit exasperated from the journey. We’ve hardly eaten all day and we are a little freaked out. We brace ourselves and go in, and promptly bump into Thom at the top of the stairs; he’s going down them to show some people around the studio.

We suddenly feel very self-conscious. We’re directed to a big bowl of punch and then find a seat. Who are all these people? Are we really supposed to be here? Val has an invitation but we still feel like impostors. We recognise one or two people but the rest must be from the record company or “real” friends of the band. We don’t make much of an attempt to mingle, just sit and talk to each other, worrying that we’ll never get past our party fear.

We have a few glasses of the punch. On my empty stomach, I start to feel a bit light headed. Val informs me that I’m pissed but I don’t believe her, she fetches a bottle of Cola and we both top up from that so I don’t get much the worse for wear. We see Caffy, the only other person we really know to speak to, and she is mingling more successfully. Every so often we see Thom wandering around, but we feel like we can’t just put ourselves in his way, when everyone else seems to have a more legitimate reason for being here.

We pluck up the courage to wander around the room. Jonny is in a corner playing jazz records, there is a room full of videos and CDs and at the other end when the door opens we see inside the office, with posters and discs on the walls. Some people ask us who we are, people are now at the ‘being able to talk to strangers’ stage of the party, we explain that we do a fanzine and have to explain what it is. We feel a bit intimidated by the self-assurance of some of these people; the band’s friends seem a bit posh.

Later, I go to the bathroom, only to have Val bang on the door to hurry me out. She’s outside the door talking to Thom; we finally have a chance to get him to ourselves. He tells us that he has 30 or so new songs on tape to give to the band to work on. No big guitar numbers. “So,” I say sarcastically, “all slow sad stuff then?” and he leans forward and pulls a face, “I know who you are!”

A guy, who is a DJ who’s come over from Israel, comes past and they talk, but we stay put and Thom comes back to us. Someone else passes and asks him what the chords to In-between Days are; he mimes the guitar part but refuses to sing it.

Val asks him if he’s recovered from the tour yet and he tells us that he’s trying to settle in at home by doing some DIY. He’s made a wobbly coffee table. He can’t sleep. He has to do his Christmas shopping. Thom tells us that Tears For Fears, for whom the band played a few support slots, have started covering Creep in their set. It’s my turn to pull a face, “Don’t you get a say in that sort of thing?”

Thom shrugs, “Thanks Roland, that’s paid for my car.” Jonny is even writing the sheet music.

People are starting to leave; someone asks us if we have anywhere to stay tonight. I look at Val, our plans and our budget had not stretched as far as getting back to Oxford tonight. We start to explain that we were going to improvise when Chris the Manager suggests we stay here, there are some beds in the attic and no one else has claimed them yet. We’re grateful and can relax a bit. We’d been too overawed to think about what we were going to do afterwards. Val always seems to have a plan and I just trust her to know what she’s doing.

A bit later, there are just a few people still here. The band members are starting to leave, Val says she’s tired and goes to investigate the attic. I kind of want to stick around, but I’m too nervous to stay here by myself. Jonny is saying goodbye to Thom. I hover, not wanting to leave without saying good-bye, but I feel awkward and have one foot on the stairs. Jonny shakes Thom’s hand and leaves. Thom sees me and asks if the attic will be all right. I burble a yes and offer a hand for him to shake. We wish each other Merry Christmas and there is a slight pause and then the handshake is pulled into a hug.

I’d wanted to convey what I was feeling, just a huge thank you for everything, and this does it without me having to come up with a speech. I pat him on the back in matey fashion and then I float upstairs. Val is asleep already. I lay awake in the dark; I can hear quiet voices and jazz playing downstairs.

I wake up at about 9am and sneak downstairs, there are a few people asleep or just waking up around the place, a few crew members and other people I don’t know. I find a kettle and some instant coffee. I start to make mugs for as many people as I can see. Val appears and goes to find a phone so we can call a taxi. We want to explore but we decide that would be taking advantage of the management’s hospitality. I suddenly realise that I’m starving but there’s no food left, apart from a giant bar of fruit and nut chocolate hidden in the bread bin. I share it out between ourselves and Duncan the guitar tech, who has surfaced and taken one of the coffees. On the way out we briefly see inside the studio, a large empty room with a solitary stool in the middle. We take an expensive taxi all the way back to Oxford and then catch the coach. We stop in Birmingham and have egg and chips in the greasy spoon café by Digbeth Station. I’ve been grinning to myself all the way there and eventually I have to tell Val about the hug.

By the time we get back to her place, we’re too tired to do anything but drink tea and flop in front of some Christmas TV. There was a comedy on called Bernard & The Genie, a sort of update of the Aladdin story. Val asks me what I would wish for, and when I blush in reply she knows what I’m thinking and totally understands. She gets it.

*Ok so this isn’t a gig, but it was a meeting with the band and it’s always got counted as one as it meant just as much to me.

1994. January.

After our adventures in deepest Oxfordshire, I keep in touch with Val by phone, with increasingly lengthy calls. I have to go out to a phone box at the end of the street or use the payphone in the University Library foyer. My hall of residence has one card-operated phone between about 20 people so being on it for hours at a time isn’t popular. Besides, it eats phone cards faster than the regular call boxes. Val’s heard from Thom again; the band go into the studio soon, they’ve got producer John Leckie, fresh from walking out on the Stone Roses as yet unfinished second LP and they’re at (1960s Record Producer) Mickie Most’s RAK studios in London. The album will be “Glam rock over my dead body,” Thom writes. He’s still taking everything so seriously. We love it.

Meanwhile we’re collecting material for the next fanzine, people are sending in their bootleg tapes of gigs and I get to hear some of them. At the end of January the band announce that they’ll play three dates in the UK in May and some UK festivals. They’re also off to Japan and Australia for the first time.

February.

The NME runs a “Brat Awards” special issue, with Thom on the cover standing awkwardly between the twin side partings of Justine from Elastica and Brett from Suede. His hair is out of control, in the pictures inside he’s waving a video camera around.

Val hears about the now confirmed May dates first, an exclusive for PID. She also finds out about a gig in Reading that the band are playing to celebrate Tour Manager Tim’s 30th Birthday. She’s going to go and as the band can’t find the questionnaires they’ve completed for her, she’s hopefully going to get an interview while she’s there.

The gig takes place at a small social club. The band play under the moniker of Faithless & The Wonder Boys. They play some of their new material for the first time.

Val gets her interview with Thom, in a laundry cupboard at the Social Club. Her Dictaphone dies and Thom ends up taking notes. He also gives her his old typewriter (having got an Apple Mac at Christmas) so she can keep on producing the fanzine. He’s had his hair cut. The new album has a working title: Belisha Beacon and when asked what it’s about he replies elusively, “Love Out Of Concrete”.

March.

Val’s cupboard interview launches her new fanzine venture, Insane, which is an attempt to go beyond the bands that the weekly press deign to cover. I write a few reviews of gigs I’ve been to in Glasgow and there are loads of other contributors. We hatch a lot of plans and have some optimistic ideas about where we’re going to go with it.

Meanwhile the weeklies become obsessed with a new scene they have christened The New Wave Of New Wave.

I sit down and compose a long letter to Thom that finally puts into words what I’ve been trying to say.

The tickets for the May dates arrive.

April.

I’m at my parents’ when I find out that Kurt Cobain has off’ed himself. I read about it on Teletext.

May.

Blur’s Parklife is released. I’m coming to the end of my first year of University. Radiohead have set up an Ansaphone service – you call up and listen to a recorded message (usually from Ed and Colin). They’ve been busy at RAK and have been living in London for the duration of the recording session, there is much anticipation about the forthcoming live shows.

Val has received a selection of clippings from some Japanese Radiohead fans. Finally, we have decent photos of Thom to use in the fanzine.

On the 23rd I arrive in Manchester to help Val make up the PID tour special – which involves several bus journeys to the place with the cheapest photocopier in North Manchester. The ‘zine comes complete with the cupboard interview, the best photos yet and a free Creep badge. We will try to sell them at the gigs over the next three days and hopefully make Val’s money back.

It’s all waiting with Val. I’m itching to get into the centre of Manchester to check out the venue, but she’s still getting ready. She sends me out to the big Sainsbury’s near her flat for NME, Melody Maker and a packet of fags (the first time goody goody little me has ever bought cigarettes). Walking back, flicking through the pages I’m disappointed because there’s hardly anything about the gigs. And then I realise that both back covers are full-page adverts for the dates, with a new band photo and a colourful R logo.
It’s a bleached out band headshot, all white hair and cheekbones.

 

Back at Val’s, I beg to listen to her tape of the Craig Cash Signal Radio Session again. The station sent her a tape and there is a track on the end that wasn’t broadcast. I write out the words for Nice Dream on the receipt for Berkeley menthols and music papers and stow it in my diary.

After a couple of bus rides we eventually arrive in Oxford Road at around 5pm. We go into the Union and head upstairs; we can hear the reverb of a loud sound check. It turns out that it can be heard especially well from the ladies toilets. There aren’t many people around, so we loiter in there and can almost make out the band thudding through what sounds like Bjork’s Human Behaviour.

Back in the bar, Val spots Tim the Tour Manager. We go up to say hello and she passes on a copy of her new ‘zine, Insane. Colin appears and she gives him a copy of the PID tour special that we spent most of the last day constructing. It’s a deluxe item with coloured paper and a free badge. Jonny, his large grin and small girlfriend are also around. A few more people turn up and we try to act cool and sit down a little way away, but with a good vantage point to see people coming into the bar.

I can’t help glancing over and very soon spot some unmistakable blond hair. We go back over and get a small wave of recognition. “How’s it going’s” are exchanged. The thing about Thom is, if you ask him how he is, he doesn’t say, “I’m fine”, like most people. He actually tells you how he is.

He feels like he’s got a cold, He’s got a cold sore. Typical as MTV are filming the London show. It always happens. He gets ill on the British dates. The shows in Europe were “OK”, they played a festival with some big bands, but they had to come on at 11am, which he wasn’t happy about. He takes a distracted look at PID; Val prompts him to admire the Japanese pictures.

The others have gone. We’re left with Thom, he’s hungry and Val, being the local, starts suggesting places to get food. He goes off to get his jacket and we hang about at the top of the stairs. We take Thom and Jim the Soundman to find Abdul’s, as they decided they fancied a curry. Ed had come back singing its praises, Manchester was where he went to Uni and at this time of year it always reminds him of exams.

We emerge from the Union into the street as Caffy pulls up in a taxi with Holly from the Melody Maker and a couple of photographers who are following this mini-tour. Thom hugs Caf, she introduces Holly and the press pack goes inside.

We set off, “Is that Holly Whatsit who wrote that review of Oasis and just ended up talking about the state of the pop?” asks Thom. We decide that here – the middle of Oxford Road, Manchester Student Central – might not be the best place to start slagging off Oasis.

People are already arriving for the gig. Ed had anxiously mentioned that he’d seen a few people in band shirts earlier and several girls in Radiohead T-shirts are wandering towards the venue.

In the kebab shop Jim and Thom dither over the veggie food and Val goes outside for a cig. It’s very hot inside. I stand back against the wall and wait. Order placed, Thom leaves the counter and stands with me. He got my letter. “The one I sent in March?” I babble.
“The one with the Chomsky thing?” (A flier for the film about Manufacturing Consent that I’d found on campus).
“I’ve replied yesterday and left it for my girlfriend to post.” he says.

It’s too warm. I watch the kebab rotate and try to think of some intelligent conversation. He asks me if I’m doing all three dates. I say I might as well, there’s no point in coming all this way just for one show.

I remember some of my last letter and we start talking about the stresses of University. I tell him how my mind is still in school and I can’t get used to the way they do things. He says not to worry, even doing finals he felt like he was still writing the same stuff he did for A-level. “They’re paying you to read books. Once you realise that, it gets a lot easier.”

He still has his copy of the fanzine in his hands, he flicks through it nervously. I can’t quite bring myself to speak. He’s laughing at what he said to Val in the cupboard. Val comes back in, having finished smoking. She finds it easier to talk to him and asks about the festival they just played in Germany. Rage Against The Machine were on, says Thom, pulling a face and shrugging his shoulders. He doesn’t get why they’re so popular.
“It’s just a bloke shouting!” is the best I can come up with.

The veggie curries are ready. We exit and walk back towards the Union. Two girls, who have been cautiously following us, eventually dare to ask Thom for an autograph. He starts scribbling on their tickets, but Val says that they will be taken away from them as they go into the gig, so he writes on the Academy gig list over where it says ‘Coming soon: M-People’. They then give their camera to Val and ask her to take a picture. She asks Thom if it’s OK with him. He stands between the girls and obediently pulls a face while Val snaps a photo.

Back at the Uni, the doors have opened and the place is slowly filling up. Thom, Jim and Val have laminates, I only have my ticket. I get asked for student ID and fumble frantically through my cards and pull out my ticket.
If they go inside, I won’t be able to follow them. But ahead of me Thom has stopped in his tracks. They’re waiting for me. I follow them upstairs, in slight disbelief; I’m about to go backstage.

We climb over cables, pass some roadies and end up in a small dressing room full of nasty graffiti and a large table heaving with water, beer, fruit and cans of fizzy drinks. Thom and Jim settle into their curries in the corner. Val asks if she can have a drink and opens a can of Red Stripe. Thom motions for me to take one and at first I refuse but then I crack one open. I’m perching on a chair with someone’s trousers on the back of it. Val carries on asking about places they’ve been to; they were in Florence but it was a shame they didn’t get to see much of it.

When they’ve finished their curry, talk moves onto recording and how they were meant to have a single finished by now. It’s been messing with his head. He feels like they are still under the “black cloud that is Creep”.
MTV are going to be in London, but the band have no control over it. If they were U2 or something, they’d have control, their own cameras, more say over what happens. But they’re not there yet.

Someone comes in with a bin full of ice; they address each other by rank, some sort of in-joke about touring feeling like being in the army.
Thom is getting worked up, but he’s still talking to us. He almost quit the band and he doesn’t really know why. He’s feeling the pressure. He talks about the RAK recording session; they’re going to have to scrap some of it. They’re not going to turn into Guns and Roses. He’s starting to pace the floor and we opt to leave. We’re starting to feel like we’re in the way.

We go out through the auditorium, which is filling with people waiting to see the support, The Julie Dolphin. The guy on the door is puzzled by the fact that I’m already inside and yet I’m leaving with my ticket intact. We go to the toilets to compose ourselves. I’m still clutching my Red Stripe. He told us stuff, important stuff.

We’re still a bit flustered as we go back into the hall. Val’s friend Claire and her chums spot us and we instinctively avoid telling them about the past hour. We stand at the back and barely notice the support band coming on. We feel drunk on one drink. We’re in love. There is a god. We can’t keep it in. We go back to the bar until the first band have finished.

Once we’ve recovered a little composure we go back in. I leave Val at the side and go into the crowd, about 4 rows back in the centre of the room. But as You kicks in the movement gets too much and I escape the crush to get to the front on Jonny’s side. My view is slightly blocked by the PA stack at the side, but I have a good view of the middle. They play quantities of new stuff, it sounds LOUD AND HUGE . Old faves Creep, Ripcord, Vegetable, Pop Is Dead, Anyone Can Play Guitar, Stop Whispering – “The single that never was a single or something,” announces Thom, echoing something Val had said earlier.

Blow Out is massive and Ed wigs out. Thom is almost pulled into the throng by his guitar strap but drags himself back to the stage. Jonny’s guitar ends up in the mob near me and the strings are broken off. They admitted to nerves early on but by the end Thom’s grinning all over his face. I feel a weird mix of pride and exuberance. They play an encore. Another new song is about “being three people at once,” something about a three headed Street Spirit. His voice is straining but he throws himself into a loud new one. I catch some lyrics about “doing it to yourself.”

I find Val at the back, collecting zine money – a heap of 50 pences from the merch stall. We wander about for a while waiting for the hall to clear. We find Tim the Tour Manager and he actually tells us where the afters will be this time. We head back to the centre of Manchester to find the bar – there’s no one else there yet. The Melody Maker journos turn up and we’re about to leave when Caffy pulls up in a taxi. She takes us to find Sascha’s Hotel where the band are staying. But there’s no sign of Thom. He’s injured his ankle and it’s blown up like a balloon. He didn’t notice until he came off stage. He’s gone to bed. There are a few people in the hotel bar having an after-hours drink: the support band, Ed, Chris the Manager, but it’s not really the aftershow we’d hoped for.

I have a southern comfort with lemonade and sit with Val and Caffy talking ‘zines and press until about 3am. He was determined that something would go wrong. We realise we are the last people in the bar. Caffy goes to her hotel room and we go back to Val’s in a mini cab. We arrive as dawn breaks and don’t feel like sleep. We eat plates of spaghetti, having not eaten all day, and try to calm down. Tomorrow we have to go to Wolverhampton.

The next morning, Val has a couple of errands to run, so we take a series of bus journeys around the outer reaches of Cheetham Hill before we head to the centre of town. We decide that taking the train will be the best bet as Wolverhampton beckons.

It’s a relatively short journey, when we arrive we stop at that old reliable food source – The Wimpy. We sit at the laminated table for so long, taking stock, that Diana Ross’s Greatest Hits (Supremes and solo) plays all the way through three times. I force feed myself some melting ice cream. I don’t like burgers but there’s nowhere else and we’ve spent enough on the train fare for one day. Finally primed and ready, we go for a recce at the venue, Wulfrun Hall. A lone boy fan waits near the stage door straining to hear the sound check within.

There’s a pub across the road so we settle in near a window and nurse a couple of Southern Comfort and Lemonades. Outside, a small clutch of people follow a blond figure who is limping across the road away from the venue to a small square. I down my drink and go outside to investigate. Val, a little more nonchalant, brings her drink outside.

It’s a photo shoot for photographer Stephen Sweet and Tim the photography student he’s got in tow (we’re rather in awe of someone who is doing their work experience with the Melody Maker.) The band are assembled on some steps with a moody looking church as a backdrop. They’re pulling pop star faces, Colin plays to the small crowd starting to gather, as the kids who were heading for the venue spot the set up. He says he feels like “Man at C&A”.

Caffy joins us. She explains she’s just back from taking Thom to hospital. He’s on painkillers for the foot he hurt last night and he doesn’t look very happy. We try to maintain the illusion that we were just passing by and discretely sit to watch the photo shoot. Ed blows our cool by calling out “Hiya Val!” and waving.

Val decides it’s time to go back to the venue; there are more people around now, quite a few people in band T-shirts. We go back to the side entrance. Some kids are already queuing up in a haphazard fashion.
“What would it be like if we shouted “We know where they are!?” whispers Val.

Inside, I spend what feels like a very long time in the toilets waiting for Val to put her face on. Then I have to queue for the cloakroom with our overnight bags. I’m getting too keyed up, I hadn’t really wanted that drink earlier and I’m in a weird mood. I go off on one at Val; I’m not even sure why I’m waiting for her, as she doesn’t want to come to the front. I’ve got too much nervous energy. I go into the hall and position myself near the front in the midst of the T-shirt wearing hordes of Black Country teenagers who make up the majority of the crowd. I have to stand for a miserable half hour, feeling angry with myself while I wait for the support to come on. When they appear, The Julie Dolphin sound suitably melodramatic.

A bit more waiting, some very moody string music (it was Messiaen’s Quartet for The End of Time) and then the band come out. Thom virtually hops onto the stage, looking a bit sorry for himself, but the force of this crowd hits him like a wave of heat and has a wonderful effect. The band all exchange disbelieving glances as the noise of the cheering hits them.
“My throat’s fucked, my foot’s fucked. We’re exhausted from too much touring but an audience like you makes it all worth it,” proclaimed Thom, to even louder cheers.

I am soon swept towards the very front where I manage to hang onto the barrier with a combination of adrenaline, blind determination and previously undiscovered upper body strength. There are three gormless lads behind me and I need to beat them. I think it was their attitude and the fact that I heard someone say, “Those girls will move,” as they indiscriminately pushed forward, that did it. I kick out at someone who keeps shoving from behind me and somehow stay on my feet in the crush. I love my Doc Martens. A couple of songs in and I am lodged securely on the front barrier, slightly to Ed’s side with a decent view of the wide stage. I cling on for dear life.

Next to me is a girl who constantly calls out “I love you Thom, Thom, Thom I love you,” in the quieter moments. When she gets his attention she hollers a request for Lurgee and then starts her mantra again, “I love yoooooooouu Thooooooom!”

I smile at her, or rather I direct my stiffening grin at her; a grin which only leaves my face as I gather my strength to push back on the weight of the throng, or hang on even tighter as the buoyant mosh takes over, it’s a force almost as strong as gravity itself. This gig is storming. I’m smiling so hard, I can’t breathe.

They play new songs and old songs like last night. I can already pick out bits and pieces, not quite working out what the actual words are yet, but getting tunes, recognising the new stuff. My view is so good, I’m dizzy with it. This is the best show so far. The new stuff sounds amazing, My Iron Lung, (or as I first heard it, My Island Life!) seems to be a number about playing in America.

During the one which goes ‘you do it to yourself you do, that’s why it really hurts’, which hasn’t as yet been attached to a title, I have a bit of a moment. I’m crushed up to the front, arms outstretched, eyes fixed, lips mouthing words that I’m hearing properly for the first time and understanding in that moment. My eyes meet Thom’s and he points and I smile, he gets it too. It’s about adrenaline and panic and exhilaration and music and noise and a pain in my chest.

Stop Whispering follows and I assume it is dedicated to the girl standing next to me, who by now is at her most audible, “This is for the girl at the front who keeps saying nice things about me. She’s very expensive!” says Thom.
She is a very happy camper at this point and resolves that this man is going to get her bra! With great difficulty in the crush the aforesaid item emerges from her sleeve, she lobs it towards the stage, but it lands just the wrong side of the monitor and the wall-eyed security man won’t return it no matter how much she pleads with him. She goes round the side of the pit to see if they will fetch it for her, but to no avail. The band go off for the encore and another bouncer notices the bra and flicks it towards the central microphone. When they come back on, it takes Thom a whole song to notice it and he stares at it in disbelief. He asks who threw it. She hollers even louder than before to let him know. He leans towards her, the barrier is not all that far from the stage and she’s managed to get back into her spot at the front. “Why on earth did you do that?” He asks, pulling a bewildered facial expression with the ever so slight hint of a wicked smile.

Blow Out, ever a noisy highlight, is awesome, with Ed ending up in the photo pit in front of bra-girl and me. Thom’s performance has involved a bit less movement than last night, due to the injured foot, but his hair is all over the place and his playing is no less energetic. All my previous frustration evaporates into happiness. I drag my drenched and battered body back to the cloakroom to claim my over-stuffed bag. Bra-girl is engaging anyone who will listen; proudly claiming the item was hers. She spots me and cries “You know!” and hugs me.

I find Val and she’s got local fanzine contributor Andy and his brother in tow. We adjourn to the bar, which is closed but full of journalists and photographers and more importantly, The Rider. The table with the drinks on is being presided over by Colin Greenwood. I’m parched but only get a swig of Val’s Red Stripe. I haven’t the foresight to snaffle supplies of free drinks as soon as I see them and it doesn’t take long for everything to be gone.

There are no chairs left, and as I slowly recover from being in the mosh, I realise that I’m exhausted. I sit cross-legged on the floor. Val has somehow found the only chair in the place. We are talking to Cristina, a fan from Italy. Caffy later fills in the gaps – Cristina was in a near fatal accident two years ago, she miraculously recovered and is now “enjoying herself” with the insurance money. She seems to be in Caffy’s charge. She seems very intense and I can’t decide if this is the language barrier or fandom or something else.

Thom appears last of all, looking full of it. Waving his arms about he asks Val for more ‘zines so he can take one home to show his girlfriend. Val tells him how well we all thought it went. For once he agrees with us. Cristina had been saying something about how touring was something to do with not wanting to grow up and he agrees with her.

Someone mentions the bra. I find my tongue and speak for the first time since I sat down, “She was next to me,” I say, “She was going absolutely crazy!”
Val infers that it might have been my piece of underwear and I swiftly laugh this off. They keep teasing me and it feels like Thom is the only one who believes me.

The rest of the band are going back to Oxford and home for the night. Once they’ve gone, Tim the Tour Manager takes charge of the remaining stragglers: Holly from Melody Maker, Stephen Sweet, Tim-the-trainee photographer, Cristina, Val, Caffy, Thom and me. Outside the back door we find the original Radiohead tour van, a commercial sized VW with a sliding back door. Tim sighs nostalgically, “We used to get all the gear in here.”

It’s big and white, has a few seats in the back and no side windows. The interior is plastered with stickers, passes and parking tickets, souvenirs of early days on the road. Tim drives, Thom and Caffy sit in the front and everyone else gets in the back. As soon as we’re moving Thom sticks a tape in. Smashing Pumpkins. The hacks don’t even recognise it. Val and I do. Then more music, it’s a compilation, some of which I recognise.

Boy Child is the last tune as we arrive at the band’s hotel, not far away. I recognise Scott Walker’s voice, but the song is simpler and more beautiful than anything of his that I’ve ever heard and I understand why Thom likes it so much. “Cheer up Scott, for fuck’s sake,” he laughs as the tape snaps off with the engine.

We arrive at the Paraquito (Wolverhampton’s “finest hotel” with a rather disturbing parrot theme). Inside people disappear for journalistic business (i.e. finding a bar that’s open at 2am). Val and I plonk ourselves down in the lobby chairs; I’m too tired to move. Thom goes away and comes back looking exhausted and coughing. He still has to talk to Holly from The Maker. They sit on the other side of the lobby and she gets about 10 minutes of interview. I glance over a few times and from what I can gather, Thom’s not saying much. They’re talking mostly about recording, playing in Europe, I catch the odd word. ‘Kurt Cobain?’ says Holly, like it’s a question on its own.

I feel terribly self-conscious. I just want to crash but we have nowhere to stay organised and we have to wait for Caffy to be finished. Keeping the music journalists happy is her job. Caffy’s mum lives here in Wolves and we can go and stay there once she’s finished here. Someone puts a warm pint of watery lager in front of me. I taste it and decide I don’t want to drink it.

When Holly’s had all she’s going to get out of Thom, he disappears alone to the lift, dry coughing, everyone politely ignoring him. Some water turns up to replace the pissy beer and I gulp it down still parched from the gig. Everyone else has hit their drinking stride and now they want food. Someone is sent out to find a place that is open at this time of the morning; we decamp to a Balti house around the corner. I realise quite how drunk everyone else is and that I am just plain knackered. Caffy just about dozes off in her chair, I stare at the bowl of runny looking curry in front of me and can’t bring myself to eat anything, despite the fact that I’ve paid for the food and by now I should be hungry, I can’t face it. We eventually lose the hacks and get a minicab back to Caffy’s mum’s place. We creep in and all three of us sleep head to toe in one double bed.

Caffy has to be up and out quite early to get a train to take the Maker people back to London, so we share a cab back to the town centre. Val and I go for a wander and a breakfast in a greasy spoon in the shopping precinct. We wander round in a daze of sleep deprivation and head back to the coach station to see if we can get onto the London bound coach. The coach is fully booked. Taking the next one would mean cutting it very fine for getting to London on time. Val, however, has a plan…

We cross over the weird main road intersection that makes up this part of Wolverhampton. We trudge into the hotel reception, last seen at 2am. Last night Tour Manager Tim had told us that the band’s van would be leaving at 12noon and it’s about that now. Val phones Tim from reception. I can’t hear what she’s saying. She tells me to wait.

We sit in the overstuffed armchairs again. Val’s eyes start to close, she’s nearly asleep, this place is full of mirrors and soon I notice a blur of blondness behind me. Tim nods to us. Val has asked for a lift to London. Thom’s foot is feeling better but he won’t speak above a whisper, he wants to preserve his voice. Sunglasses on, he hobbles across the road.

The van is parked on the far side of the hotel’s parking area; I walk over slowly, my arms feeling like they’re dropping off. I have enormous, scary-looking bruises under each armpit from hanging on to the barrier last night, and they’ve turned purple over night. My small rucksack feels like it weighs a tonne. I curse myself for bringing an extra cardigan.

We load into the van. Thom takes one corner, I take the other and Val sits in the sideways seats in front of us. Tim is up front driving. Val tries to break the ice with a few questions, some chat about nothing much. I keep quiet. Thom barely says a word. The tape from last night goes on. Stereolab can be heard to smiles of recognition from me and puzzlement from Val. And we’re off.

Thom takes a Ben Okri novel (Songs Of Enchantment, sequel to The Famished Road) out of his bag and apart from occasionally underlining something with a pencil, we hear no more from him. Val falls asleep. I become hyper-aware of every little fidget I make. Tim puts Radio 4 on for a bit. I fall asleep once we get onto the motorway. The next thing I know we’re at a service station somewhere on the M1.

We have a toilet stop and the others get some food. All I can manage is a bottle of water. When we get back in the van, the tape comes on again. “This is Tanya Donnelly’s boyfriend’s band,” says Thom. “Anastasia Screamed. They’ve split up.”

The Dead Kennedys come on and Val asks Thom to identify the track. The tape rolls on: Blur’s Advert from Modern Life Is Rubbish; a Syd Barrett track that I thought sounded like David Bowie; something by Tim Buckley; Love Hurts by Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons and a track with flute on it that Thom tells us is Nick Drake.

I recognise and am surprised by the presence on the tape of Huggy Bear. Val thinks she hears Pink Floyd but it’s Verve’s Gravity Grave. Elvis Costello’s Crimes Of Paris comes on and I find myself singing along to the chorus, having discovered the album Blood & Chocolate recently, (Thom mentioned it as one of his favourite records in one of our questionnaires).

Thom does the occasional a bit of air drumming, plucks one or two imaginary guitar chords and once in a while sings a line out loud. These are a selection of favourite songs. No one says much aside from song titles.

Soon enough the tape is round to Scott Walker again and the radio comes on. Mark Goodier on Radio 1. We’re approaching London. Goodier is announcing “The amazing Seal” and sounding unconvincingly excited. Everyone in the back of the van pulls a face. I try to say something about brainless DJs but no one’s really listening as we hit an outer London traffic jam. Val navigates from an AA map and the air of tension returns. We all suddenly remembered why we were here.

As we drive around the corner to the back entrance of the Astoria, it seems to hit us in a wave. Tim goes quiet. In the back, Thom brings out his mirror shades and assumes his armour. When we get out, there are huge MTV lorries all over the place. Thom disappears inside quickly. Tim asks me if I want an aftershow pass. (of course I do). We understand without being told that we have to leave now.

Val and I go around the corner into Oxford Street and the nearest and only available pub, The Tottenham. I have a hot chocolate and it makes me feel sick. I need a walk. Val wants food and the nearest place is a McDonalds. I leave her there and stomp off to find a post box for a card I’ve written to K and to buy today’s paper. There’s also a preview of the gig in Time Out. When I get back to Val, she insists I eat something and I have some sort of cardboard chicken sandwich. Then we return to the pub to fret.

When we get back to the Astoria, people are already queuing. The doors open and Val goes off to join the guestlist queue. I chat to Sid Abuse, who is selling copies of his ‘zine to a captive audience. Once I get inside with my ticket, I check my bag at the cloakroom, find Val and Cristina and we order cans of Red Stripe in the bar.
Inside the Astoria’s downstairs, I go to the front and talk to some girls who I’d seen queuing up. They’ve previously seen Radiohead in a smaller venue. They’re only 16 but don’t tell anybody. I tell them about my bruises from last night, but I keep today’s journey a secret.

David Gray plays first; he got a sort of Van Morrison thing to his voice and plays a selection of stomping acoustic stuff. I try to move as there is a tall hairy guy in front of me. As Julie Dolphin come on there is a bit more movement in the crowd and I keep trying to gauge if I’m going to be able to stay put where I am, about three rows from the barrier. The throng tightens making a surge for the front impossible. There is a high density of boys in front. Something about their attitude makes me really angry. This is my first London gig. I’m used to a Glasgow crowd and this is completely different. Instead of moving forward I get forced further back and get increasingly frustrated. If I get stuck in the mosh I will have to fight to stay upright and right now I don’t have the strength. Even before the band come on to the stage I can feel that I’m going to get crushed, the pain from my existing bruises is just going to get worse and I’m not going to be able to concentrate on the show.

All of a sudden Radiohead are on the stage. I get tossed around the mosh pit and somehow get my arms stuck up in the air. I’m right in the middle but it’s impossible to stand still. I don’t have the necessary energy to go with the flow. I’m pinned in position and I can’t even get out. No one is giving an inch to anyone in this pit, let alone to a wild-eyed partially asphyxiated girl. I accept someone’s kind offer to make room and virtually crawl out to Ed’s side of the stage. The Astoria isn’t all that big but it is very wide. I get my breath back and try not to think about the pain in my sternum. I wished I’d gone with Val to sit on the balcony. For all its small size, this gig doesn’t feel as friendly as Wolves.

Thom looks like he can’t believe the place is full. The whole room is moshing to the new songs. I can feel myself choking. I get clear and get a view of the stage again. Thom kicks hell out of his guitar at the end of Blow Out. Ed is playing to the cameras, letting his white shirt stream out behind him. And Jonny is moving about from his usual spot on the right. I shout for Nice Dream and there was someone else shouting for it too, but they don’t play it. There are some real fans here after all.
At the end when I get out I am fired up and ready to take on the world. I get water and reclaim my bag on autopilot.

I can see Caffy on the stairs, but the crush of people going in the opposite direction is such that she can’t reach me with the pass. Even as I’ve nearly got the sticker in my hand, burly bouncers are still trying to throw me out. I get thrust into the entrance hall and nearly give up. You cannot reason with these people when you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards and your clothes are damp rags. I compose myself and march back inside like I’ve got a right to be there and Caffy is on the other side of the door with my pass.
Upstairs, the Keith Moon Bar is already packed. I should have gone straight there; I probably wouldn’t have even needed the sticker.

London aftershows are big, noisy affairs, not like the intimate slumming we’d had elsewhere. The band members are mingling and milling about with some of their Oxford pals and their girlfriends are in evidence. I stay on the periphery where I feel I belong, standing on the edges of a few of Val’s chats with people. Thom comes in at last when the crowd has reduced a bit. He gets around to us in the fullness of time. Champagne and Red Stripe are handed around. He’s getting through the drinks as fast as everyone else. Cristina, Val and I sit on the stairs and while they talk ten to the dozen, I quietly contemplate being here, watching, trying to dare myself to talk to someone.

Caffy offers us a bed at her place so we get our things together. I pat a by now quite drunk Thom on the arm and burble, “Wonderfulgigthankyouseeyou.”

We mini cab it to Deptford. We’re tired to the point of collapse but Caffy has a video of the JBTV show sent from Chicago with an amazing performance of Inside My Head (with Thom writhing on the floor) that we have to see. In the accompanying interview he talks about the baby on the cover of Pablo Honey, “It’s me but it’s not me”.

In the morning I wake up on a sofa bed with cramp in my legs and bruises all over, to the sounds of a tape of assorted new stuff from the artists that Caffy works with. I hear a voice I recognise, it’s a song called Sulk, and it sounds a like a big Scott Walker number.

Caffy’s off to the Manics’ Anti Nazi League gig, so we leave and head for the train to London Bridge. The Bank Holiday means peak fares on the trains so we give up our plan of going to Euston and head for Victoria Coach Station where there are long queues for tickets. Eventually we get a bus late in the afternoon. We get back to Manchester and my mum has forwarded Thom’s latest letter. I lock myself in Val’s bathroom to read it. If only I could have read it before I’d seen him. All that stuff we’d touched on in the dressing room about losing it is in there; it’s the most personal yet. It feels like he knows that I get it.

Belisha Beacon is “too Blur” so maybe now the second album will be called “Oz” because of a John Updike quote, about “realities we wish existed” that he’s found. (It’s taken me about 16 years but I tracked it down, it’s from Memories Of The Ford Administration). There’s a lot of angst and fear but still the conviction that the album they are working on “is one of the best things I will ever do in my whole life…”

As a warm up for their performance at Reading Festival, the band have announced a low-key gig in Gloucester. As we’ve already decided to go to Reading, it makes sense to go to this gig on the way. Val comes to my parents’ house and Rebecca picks us up in her beige Mini Metro.

When we find the Guildhall, the show is a sell out. Val is on a promise of another interview with a band member for the zine and so we head for a pub to compose questions. But when we arrive back at the venue and we find Tim the Tour Manager, he has forgotten about the proposed interview, the band are supposed to be talking to the NME now and so we hang around to see if they can fit us in later.

We’re shown into a large room where band and crew are eating dinner. Val chats to Ed about her current enthusiasm for Shed 7 and the band’s visit to New Zealand. Thom leaves and we all exchange greetings. We decide to get out of the way and go to a different pub; Val and Rebecca get caught up on zine gossip. I get even more jittery than I have been already.

On the way back we pass Colin, who has got very thin and now sports a smart ‘Al Pacino in The Godfather’ haircut. He compliments us on the latest zine. Thom is just going inside when we reach the venue, the guy from NME has a migraine so there will be no interviews after all. He goes in, pulling his “see you later” expression. I’m Val’s plus-one on the guest list for this show, which leaves me with a spare ticket. I attempt to sell it but want to go inside so end up giving it to Paul from Green River Records, Reading, who is a mate of the band, he’s going to try and find a taker for it. It’s a very small-scale affair tonight. I leave my belongings with Julie from the Management, who is manning the T-shirt stall. We leave her a few copies of PID to sell.

Tiny Monroe are the support. Apparently this gig was their booking originally and they’ve let Radiohead take over. We get pretty close to the front, on Jonny’s side. There are more pedals laid out in front of him than ever before. They come on stage to what I now know is Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, the magnificently doomy string music that they’d been coming out to on the last few dates. In contrast to this Thom looks almost happy as he bounds on stage wearing a red polo shirt. They do Bones, You, Ripcord then Creep (“This is one of our many songs…”) and Thom’s all over the place waving his arms and emoting. People in the front row reach out and ruffle his hair. On the first soaring “Sheeeee’s” he’s in front of me, he reaches over and winks at me and I wink back. And then he launches into the long bit and I have this incredible feeling of KNOWING, I don’t know how else to explain it, something has clicked.

Thom starts to introduce the next song, “After a long period of indecision and not knowing how the fuck to follow it…” and someone interrupts “When’s the album?” “It’s coming!” he exasperatedly replies.

Everyone on stage has smiles all over their faces. Then they launch into My Iron Lung and it’s huge and loud and full of power. There follow more new songs including Black Star, until they play Inside My Head, which is still beautiful to my ears. The song that might have been called Ex-Pat Glitterati is now called Interstate 5. (It ends up being recorded as Maquilladora.) Just is next and it is fast becoming the highlight of the set. Pop Is Dead and Anyone Can Play Guitar push everyone to the edge. …But wait for it, there’s an encore.

Thom and Jonny come back on with their guitars and Thom says “This one’s called Fade Out” and proceeds to pick out the tune on his acoustic, behind him Jonny oscillates his hair and strums his electric. The song is simply heart wrenching. I just about recognise the “La la la’s” from the Astoria when they played it as a full band. It’s cold and dark and beautiful. “We’re sloppy gits really” says Thom when they’re done.

They play Lurgee and Prove Yourself, which much to Jonny’s amusement is still a popular sing along. Rebecca shouts for “Another sloppy one,” from behind me.
“It’s all right this one’s half sloppy” says Thom. Some girl at the back shouts, “Say fuck or something”.

“Say fuck or something?!” Thom repeats, “That’s the sort of thing Rage Against The Machine would do. That means they’re hard.” Cheers and whistles, “And American!” Blow Out starts out gently and ends as a noisy beast of a thing.

 

All the way through this gig Thom has teetered between amusement, anger and aggression. Val says it’s one of the best performances she’s seen. Afterwards we wait for Tim, Caffy or Colin, anyone who could do the interview that we need if there’s going to be able to produce another issue of PID.

Jonny passes us and Val says something like “How was it for you?” and he giggles and grins at us before scurrying off blushing. We congratulate Phil and his new wife Cait and they show us their matching wedding rings. Tim is busy counting T-shirt money, we can’t find Caffy. Paul from Green River gives me a tenner for my ticket and I never did get to give him back the £2 I owed him in change.

We end up outside watching the exits. Just about to give up, we spot Caffy at the front along with most of Gloucester’s indie population. Ed, Colin and a very spiky haired Thom emerge from the doorway. He’s baring armfuls of posters advertising tonight’s gig. “There’s shit loads of these in the dressing room, I’ve just found them.”

He sees me and says “I know you’ll have one” and grins. I try to peel one off the pile, but people are moving in and I end up with about four posters stuck to together. He is swamped by the indie kids, somehow managing to sign some of the posters for them. A girl breaks away from the throng beaming, “He signed my arm!”
Rebecca tells Colin how much she liked Fade Out. I can only stand there glowing, unable to speak. I got a wink and a smile and it’s like he knows how it feels. It was what I most wanted.

We follow Caffy to her hotel where she has a tiny single room. We all sleep on the floor. I prop my head on a towel and am thankful for deep pile carpet. I get a cold and fitful few hours of rest. I only know I was asleep because of the dream I had. When I wake up all I can remember is that I was walking down endless corridors and when I got to the end I was sitting crossed legged on the floor. I got to explain myself. I had the feeling I was forgiven for something.

The next day we make an early start, dine in the railway station and then motor on to Reading with American Music Club on the car stereo. The rivers of indie kids streaming through town to the festival are a jaw dropping sight. We drop Val at Sid’s place in Caversham (they both have passes and she doesn’t do camping) and then Rebecca and I go back to the site to pitch our tents.

We rendezvous with Val and the Abuse fanzine posse at the signing tent. I try to plan what bands I want to see but I’ve never been to a big festival before and the programme is a bit baffling.

We split up. Rebecca goes off to see some bands; Val and the Abuse gang slope off backstage to get beer and schmooze. I try to get my bearings. I eventually catch a bit of The Verve’s set on the main stage. It’s sunny, it suits them. I’m surprised by the amount of Radiohead T-shirts people are wearing.

We reconvene and everyone else wants to see Hole, I’m the only one who doesn’t get it, I wander off again and see a bit of Sleeper in the Melody Maker tent, and then the Auteurs, one of the bands that I actually wanted to see and then find Val for the end of the Lemonheads’ set.

Rebecca and I manage to find our way back to the tents to sleep in spite of the Wedding Present echoing across the field. Thank god for earplugs.

I waste the next morning waiting for people, being made late by bumping into other people and generally feeling like a bit of a spare part. Eventually I find some friends back on the site. But Val doesn’t turn up for our appointed meeting, at the ice cream van near the back stage entrance. Rebecca and I find each other again and sit in the sun for a while watching whatever happens to be on the main stage (Reverend Horton Heat). She spots Thom, Jonny and their mate Nigel (later of The Unbelievable Truth) heading for the Melody Maker tent. Rebecca wants to run and follow them; I want to play it cool. Thom’s got his impenetrable pop star sunglasses on and they are like a sign that says ‘Do not approach’. I assume that I will see them later.

Girl band Jale are on. We see Jonny hiding behind his hair as a girl asks for his autograph; Thom has disappeared into the crowd. We wander about some more. Colin spots me and says hi. I’m so confused I ask him if he’s seen Val. I feel like a little kid who has lost her mum at the fair. I wish him luck and he says he’s going for a lie down before they play, as he’s a bit tired.

We’ve given up waiting for Val, between her latest faves Shed 7 and Radiohead we know she’ll be at the signing tent soon enough, so Rebecca goes off to see some more bands while I sell some copies of PID to the kids in the queue. They go very quickly and I soon have a pocketful of money. Lisa and Val miraculously appear as the queue for the signing tent gets busy and advise me to join it. Caffy has given the chaps T-shirts to hand out but they are soon all gone. I talk to kids in the queue and give them flyers for the fanzine. We don’t seem to be getting any closer to the tent, I watch people leaving with their signed stuff, a lad has a shirt and Thom has written ‘bootleg!’ on it. Tim spots us and comes over; he says we might as well give up, as the band have to go.

 

I catch the end of Gene’s set and then go to see Pulp, who are my second favourite band at the moment. There are girls in tight tops getting excited about Jarvis, but my reason to be here is to get a bit further forward because Radiohead are on next. Steve Lamacq, who is comparing, plays Ping Pong by Stereolab on the PA and then it all goes quiet.

Time for Radiohead. Thom walks on last in a homemade green T shirt, inscribed “20th Century Skin”, you can tell he’s drawn it himself because of the antennae and the way the i’s are lower case. On the back it says W.A.S.T.E. and I don’t know yet what it stands for but something tells me it is very significant.

He starts the set with bug-eyed shades on. There is silence then he takes the mic and sings alone. “In my mind I where I long for you…” (I find out later that this song is Tim Buckley’s Sing A Song For You off Thom’s much-mentioned favourite Happy Sad. But right now I don’t know what it is). The sun is shining, I have a good view, and I have space to dance. This fragment of a song is out of place and beautiful. It mentions malls so I think it must be something he’s written. It is payback for missing last year’s festival, it says ‘I’m here now and I can sing’, without a pause it become Bones and they’re off.

You, Ripcord, Creep… the crowd clap along trying to make it a stadium anthem. Today it’s a song about “Staring at the sun”; It doesn’t feel quite right here. Duncan the guitar tech brings Thom’s shades back, he threw them away after the intro. They play new stuff and I am willing them on with my whole being, wanting to feel every note, wanting to move about, wanting to scream. They end on Anyone Can Play Guitar with Jonny breaking strings, then grabbing hold of them and spinning the guitar around his head. It all looks great on the big screens and I can see them and the stage from where I’m standing. It’s all over before I’ve had time to catch my breath. I crawl out to the side of the field and frantically dig in my bag for money at a lemonade stand. “Either you’re on drugs or you’ve lost something,” says the man, I must look deranged at this point. I find Val and collapse into a hug. She drags me to another stage to see Shed 7.

Wide-eyed and buzzing, I try to dance off some of my adrenaline to the Sheds but it’s not the same feeling. Val is full of it, as she’s been talking to Rick Shed backstage. Lisa appears and says she saw Ed wandering around backstage looking fed up, and no one has seen Thom since they came off stage. Something wasn’t right. It feels weird to have to watch more bands now. Rebecca and I catch a couple of Elastica’s songs but they’re turgid and dull and it’s too packed to see so we give up. I eat greasy food and avoid watching Ice Cube.

I find Val again and we try to watch Madder Rose. But the lure of backstage beer is too much for her and she disappears again. Lowly wristband holder that I am, I have to stay here on my own, overwhelmed by a mix of joy and frustration. The tent is cold. The realisation that there is nothing else in the world that makes me feel like this is suddenly incredibly painful.

After another night of trying to sleep on the cold ground in my poorly equipped tent, being woken every few minutes by the cries of “Bollocks!” that reverberate around the campsite, I get up for another day of festivities. I wander around the Rivermead Centre record fair in a sleep-deprived daze. I buy Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Portishead’s Dummy. (and set in train my musical taste for the next few years).

I find Val back on site and she takes me to Sid’s place for a much needed cup of tea. When we come back to the festival I lose her again. I stumble into the end of Jeff Buckley’s set and know I’ve missed something important. Later I enjoy Morphine’s set and then have the funniest moment of the weekend seeing Henry Rollins onstage. He looks angry, constipated and heavily tattooed. I can’t take him seriously.

We see Rebecca’s faves American Music Club and then fail to appreciate Red Hot Chili Peppers. I end up in the Melody Maker tent, on my own again, watching Tindersticks. I’m so exhausted I sit down on the ground and cry my eyes out.

Val ran into Colin as he was leaving and asked him how it went. He thought they’d gone down well, having seen the audience reaction but the others felt a bit let down, as Gloucester had been such a good show. The festival had felt like an anticlimax.

On Monday morning, we ride back northwards through the Oxfordshire countryside in the Metro. Val feels nostalgic for last December. Rebecca drops us off, Val and I decamp to my Gran’s empty house. The record player works and we can be as noisy as we like without disturbing anyone. We play all my vinyl and proceed to work our way through a bottle of Southern Comfort with no mixers, as it’s all I can find to drink. We sit up until 2am talking and listening to records. I am learning how to have drunken late night revelations, the kind you never really remember in the morning.

I should probably feel worse than I do, Val can’t believe she has to go and catch a bus at noon with this hangover. A couple of cigarettes on the patio impresses my parents with her punkiness and then I take her to the bus station, so she can go back to Manchester.

I spend the last of my money on a copy of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish and the Sonic Youth cover of the Carpenters that Thom had reviewed in that week’s Melody Maker. I get back home and my brother has bought me the other tune he liked, Flaming Lips’ She Don’t Use Jelly. I book tickets for a couple of the gigs that the band are playing in September so my next fix is already in place.

 

5th: Videohead, a big feature in Select with pictures from the band’s extensive collection of camcorder footage.

 

12th: Val sends tape of the MIL tracks – There is something that reminds me of the Cure about some of the songs, they sound dark and beautiful.

13th: Hear My Iron Lung on Radio 1 and it sounds great.

14th: The Evening Session beams in a live session performance of Bones and a very nervous Thom speaks – Reading wasn’t as good as Glasto, there were “too many egos”, fuelling my suspicion that something strange had happened. He’s miffed, as no one seems to know about the forthcoming tour. I write him a letter full of questions that I doubt he’ll get.

17th: I phone Val, they’re playing on Friday in Abingdon for a Rwanda charity. She says that the reaction to Reading was predictable, the press aren’t going to do a U turn after 2 years of slagging them off. She has a fax from Thom with handwritten MIL lyrics. But not the muffled distorted line that’s been driving me mad.

23rd: I am angry at myself. If I could drive I probably would have gone to Oxford today.

26th: My Iron Lung released. Go to Nottingham and straight to HMV to buy both CDs, Selectadisc (much lamented Nottingham record emporium) aren’t fast enough to put their stock out so I get the 12” in Virgin, it’s not a gatefold but it’s numbered. Inside, the CD is covered in what look like Elastoplasts… something Thom said comes back to me, how he covered everything in plasters when he read some bad reviews.

27th: Today is the Glasgow gig but I’m not there. I phone Val and she’s not even sure if she’ll come to the other shows. She’s not keen on the extra tracks on the CDs. She’s fed up, she didn’t like what I wrote for her other ‘zine, I feel a bit dumped on.

28th: The interview with Thom in NME is almost a tearjerker. They imply that things got so bad that he nearly finished it all. Melody Maker’s piece isn’t quite so bad, and there are cool photos of Jonny giving Thom a haircut.

I phone Caffy. She’s very busy but she takes my address and says she’ll send me an extra Sheffield ticket.

 

Val phones. She is coming today after all. Rebecca arrives in the Metro and we hit the M1 listening to the new REM album.

In Leeds we see the tour buses outside the University venue. I go and wait for Val near the Union. Her hair is dyed a darker shade of magenta. We bump into a gang of Irish and Scottish Manic Street Preachers fans that she knows and we go into The Dry Dock pub. We drink some Red Stripe and they talk about the band touring in America. I’m in a state of pre-gig turmoil and not really saying much.

Once we’re inside the venue we have a look at the new T-Shirts. Val has a laminate tour pass from Tim. He recognises me now and says hello. We wish him luck he goes off to be busy elsewhere. We stand at the front of stage barrier as the venue is still quiet, but Val moves to the back before Julie Dolphin come on. Once the band starts I’m standing next to a girl who knows the words; she was at the Manchester show in May. Between bands Tim says hello to me again from the stage. The intro tape plays jazz and then Blur, Portishead and Iggy Pop. The band come out not to the doom-laden strings this time, but to a track full of bubbling noises that I don’t recognise. (It’s Alice Coltrane’s Journey In Satchidananda)

Thom’s had a haircut! Blimey he went and did it. It’s not quite a skinhead, more like the short do he had on the Anyone Can Play Guitar cover; it’s a dramatic change. He has orange jeans and a grey T-shirt on.

They open with Bones and You. Thom announces that his “Daddy” is in the crowd tonight to see them for the first time ever. They play Just, Stop Whispering; He asks to be reminded of the words. Creep is “our karaoke song” and sure enough the crowd take it over. I can’t help laughing and a verse in I can see Thom is laughing at the ludicrousness of it too. Fade Out has become Street Spirit. They play Permanent Daylight and Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong off the new EPs. The wow-w ending note is restored to Inside My Head. Blow Out is the second encore and Thom’s down in the pit, pulled until he falls in and has to be shoved back up on stage again.

The crowd know the words except the ones that no one can make out in My Iron Lung. “It’s number 16 in the midweek’s,” he says proudly. They finish on Pop Is Dead with “one final line of coke for Whitney Houston.”

Val has got one extra after show pass, but she and Rebecca take them so they can go to the ladies. This leaves me in the venue as it clears, trying to not get thrown out. I go to the sound desk and sit on the floor. At least three security guards ask me if I’ve fallen. I must look like I’m off my face; I’m battered and sweaty. Someone gives me a pint of water and I am able to stand up, but I’m not leaving. I spot Paul from Green River Records and ask if I owe him any money from Gloucester. I try to make like I know what I’m doing, stay put and don’t panic. If I behave like I belong here then I won’t get thrown out.

Thom passes through the room from the backstage door; he’s looking for his dad. We exchange startled facial expressions. I see them on their way back a bit later; they are the same build and from the back at least seem remarkably alike. Val reappears; she’s been talking to Colin about setting up a proper fan club.

Tim appears, surrounded by eager girls, tells us that they’re off to a club called The Music Factory and gives me a pass. We go out and find Val’s friend Claire and her boyfriend Ste. Rebecca wants to get changed if we’re going to a club, and this involves an elaborate technique of hiding behind some bushes to put new clothes on. We drive around Leeds to find the club and eventually park on double yellow lines.

We get some drinks, I spot Diane from The Julie Dolphin, Claire and Ste get in without passes (having gone to get money and paid to get in, so much for exclusivity) and then we spot the band members minus Colin, whom Tim said earlier was off for a “romantic evening with his new girlfriend”. Someone is singing along to Cigarettes And Alcohol and I overhear someone else quip that Oasis thought Radiohead were “shite”. We drink and watch Phil dancing and stand around wondering if anything is going to happen, it’s an average indie night with too much Oasis playing. Then The Beastie Boys’ Sure Shot comes on and Thom hits the dance floor, throwing some disco moves that seem to suit the 1970s cop show vibes of the song.

Parklife comes on and we spot Thom picking out the chords in mid air. The DJs try to have a bit of a techno interlude but it impresses no one. They go back to playing standard indie disco fare like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Jane’s Addiction after that. I sit down and drink my pint, swing my feet and shake my head to the music. I Wanna Be Adored by The Stone Roses comes on and Thom is opposite us, leaning on the wall with his drink, staring at the room in that way that he does when he’s a bit drunk. For a while I wished I were more drunk, drunk enough to see if anyone wanted to dance. But that blank stare doesn’t invite company.

They play Love Will Tear Us Apart; I refuse to dance to Joy Division in public. Then they play Cannonball by The Breeders. Rebecca and I can no longer resist. Ed is already on the dance floor. There is one song left to clear the floor at the end of the night. The opening chords cause an audible groan to ricochet around the place. With an incredible lack of tact, they are closing their night with Creep. Everyone looks uncomfortable and tries not to catch Thom’s attention or run over to kill one of the DJs.

We leave and hit the M62; vaguely lost we pull up at Julie’s Pantry burger van at 3am and then wind our way back to Manchester.

 

 

We leave Manchester without Val and it takes an hour to get out of the city. Then we have a slightly hairy drive across the moors in the Metro.  Another one-way system slows our entrance into Sheffield, but eventually we see the tour buses parked up by the Octagon (aka the University Refectory).  We end up parking by the railway station and eat some nutrition-free food while I wait for my brother, his friend Andy and my friend K to turn up. We all get back in the car to find the venue. I still have a spare ticket and it doesn’t cross my mind to sell it.

My brother and his mate go off to find the toilets and pass Thom, who stares at them and gives them a double take.  The doors are quite late opening due to an electrical fault. I have time to buy a red My Iron Lung T-Shirt. Rebecca and I get close to the front, but not quite to the barrier, on Jonny’s side near the bass bins. K’s got her earplugs in. The intro tape is a mix of jazz, Strangelove and The Fall.

The Julie Dolphin play, Rebecca is a bit agitated, but I feel different from last night as my old friends are here and I get to show them the band that I’ve been raving about.

The crush sets in as Radiohead come on and play Bones, You, Prove Yourself, Just. “Reading Schmeading” says Thom. He has his orange trousers on again, with a printed black polo shirt this time. There’s too much smoke from the dry ice machines for Permanent Daylight, Ripcord, Vegetable, and a karaoke Creep dedicated in slightly saucy fashion to the Freshers, “wait ’til the bank loan comes through and you won’t be voting Tory again next year.”

Stop Whispering sinks into Anyone Can Play Guitar and they go off stage. The crowd bring them back on for Street Spirit, Lurgee and Benz. Thom performs alone for Thinking About You. “We’ll do one more on the condition that everyone in the room buys the single at the end of the week so we can get on Top Of The Pops.”

It’s very hot again and there is a lot of movement in the crowd that means I have to concentrate on staying upright and I’m not able to get a good view. Rebecca is stressing about finding Tim to get passes. Once you’ve had them once you want them every night. Val isn’t here and she wouldn’t let us have her laminate pass. It was too precious to be parted from.

I ask Tim what’s happening and although he’s very busy, he shows me the tour dates on the back of his laminate, they have a day off tomorrow, they’re going home to Oxford. He asks me if I’m going to any more shows and I tell him I have to go back to Glasgow, but maybe I could make it to London. “Just ask Caffy,” he says.

I would rather leave now with my friends than stay and lig, especially if the band are leaving.  We all go outside to wait for our various lifts home. I realise that it’s actually earlier than I thought, only about 11pm. I try to get back into the venue to get a drink but can’t. A Japanese girl is waiting near the tour buses. I ask her if she is one of the Japanese fanzine writers Miki or Tomoko? It turns out she is Izzy and she’s here following the whole tour. She seems nice and we laugh our way past the language barrier.

Rebecca comes back having checked out the after show disco, a lot of fuss over nothing. I go and fetch the others but they’ve spotted the tour van. We see Jonny surrounded by eager kids. We pull ourselves together and Andy rushes over to Jonny, “You’re beautiful man, can I shake your hand?”

Phil and Ed come by and compliment my brother on the brand new red My Iron Lung shirt that he’s put on because his original shirt is soaked with sweat. People are getting their vinyl signed (I wonder where they keep it during the show?). Thom comes around the corner. “Good Morning!” he says to me.

“How did it go?” I ask, and open the floodgates.

“Y’know, it was very hot, after about three songs it was like, fucking hell I can’t take any more of this… We seem to keep injuring Jonny’s hand, he’s got blood everywhere… I did my back in last night and now his hand…”

“You’re having a competition to see who can get most injuries.” I say,  “What did your dad think to it last night?”

“Well, he’d been for a curry and got a pissed first and he missed the start of the set. When he got there, because I’d said he was there, someone asked him ‘Are you Thom’s dad?’” Thom pulls his ‘what the fuck?’ face, “I don’t think he knew what to make of it!”

A mob of kids move in with a camera and I say, “Have a nice day off.” Thom turns to go but comes back to put his bottle of beer down. He’s holding too many things in not enough hands, a little black bag, a record sleeve that someone has thrust into his hand to sign. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, I stick my hand out and take the beer. I just stand there with it while he gets a photo taken and then signs big ‘O’s on Jim and Andy’s tickets. I give the beer back but more boys have turned up wanting him to write jocular messages on things. Another girl takes the beer and doesn’t give it back. Tim rescues Thom and ushers him up the street. I mumble, “Run for it”.

Thom wonders aloud where his beer has gone. I don’t have it; He passes Izzy and gives her a pat on the arm goodbye. We all move back to Rebecca’s car. We’re pouring over the map as the tour bus, a coach this time, slowly backs out of the car park into the road. The back window of the large white vehicle is empty except for a blond figure in the middle with his elbows propped on top of the back seats. I wave and he waves back. The bus gathers speed and is gone.

My mother turns up to drive us home and after giving Rebecca some hints on her route, we load up. I am contented to sit in the boot of the estate car so the others can have the seats. K is very quiet. I found out later that someone had felt her up during the gig. The perils of being a female in a crowded and sweaty venue full of rude boys with no respect for personal space. I had avoided unwanted attention at shows so far by dressing like a boy –battered leather jacket, black jeans, Doc Martens – but it makes me angry that you get made into a target just for being a girl wearing a skirt.

Back at home I try to go to sleep but give up and get up for tea and toast. I turn in at 2am and dream vivid dreams.